Palestine

Protests Demand Steven Salaita be Rehired

In the first week of August, Steven Salaita was fired from his position as an associate professor in the American Indian Studies program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, the flagship public university of the state) for tweets expressing outrage over Israel’s attack on Gaza and those supporting it.

Stop Israel’s Ongoing War Crimes Against the People of Gaza

The mission was to bring the reality of what Operation "Protective Edge" did to the people of Gaza, and why this rose to the level of "war crimes;" to expose the role of the United States in fully backing Israel politically and militarily; and to challenge all watching to bring forth resistance to stop these crimes that is much more broad, diverse, and determined.

Speakers from the U.S. and around the world made great efforts to contribute, and powerfully amplify the call.

We are not making these decisions, yet we reside within the country that is.

Perhaps you are one of those on Facebook that has seen the constant stream of photos of injured or dead Palestinian children, usually with their heads blown off, images streamed from Palestine. Or perhaps you are one who marched against both Iraq wars; or perhaps you are researching, following, and trying to influence folks on the revolution in Syria.

Monday, I participated in a discussion led by Alan Goodman of revcom.us (Revolution Newspaper), whose most recent article on the bombing of a schoolyard in Gaza last weekend, where 16 children were killed, concludes:

If systematically murdering desperate women, children, and other refugees who have taken shelter at UN schools isn’t a war crime, what is?!

On November 15, 2012, day three of the recent eight day bombardment of Gaza, Ahmed Basyouni and his family were watching news of the attacks on TV in their home in the eastern section of Beit Hanoun. He and his wife assured his older children that they would be safe because they lived in a calm area where there are no fighters. Two of his younger sons were asleep in the next room. While they were talking, at approximately 10:35 pm, the Israeli Air Force fired three rockets from a U.S.-provided F-16 bomber into a nearby olive grove. Ahmed’s house rocked, all his windows shattered, electricity went out plunging the family in darkness, and Ahmed’s fifteen year old son Nader screamed from the next room that his brother was dead.

At this writing, a brutal wave of targeted and indiscriminate killing, destruction, and terror is being rained down on the Palestinian people in Gaza by Israel—an operation the Israelis are calling "Pillar of Defense." Health officials in Gaza say 46 people have been killed and 440 people wounded so far in the attacks.

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World Can't Wait is a national movement formed to halt and reverse the terrible program of war, repression and theocracy that was initiated by the Bush / Cheney regime and the on-going crimes that continue to this day.